Today’s notice: Polling vs. Democratic primary voters, again. Trump’s secret AF1 swap. Data center builders like Ken Paxton. Chuck Edwards’ replacement. Food industry vs. RFK Jr. Plus: Social Security reform lives, sorta.
THE LATEST
Is tonight another major test for pollsters? Public polling fell flat on its face in last week’s Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, where widespread predictions of a landslide for Abdul El-Sayed proved completely off the mark. El-Sayed won, but in a squeaker that allowed anyone’s narrative to be real. The result has led many supporters of David Crowley, the mainline Democratic candidate in tonight’s Wisconsin gubernatorial primary, to scoff at polls finding progressive Francesca Hong with an all-but-insurmountable lead.
“This is not going to be the runaway that some of the polls suggest that it will be,” Sachin Chheda, a Democratic consultant in Wisconsin who has stayed neutral in the race, told NOTUS’ Christa Dutton.
Trending
Maybe pollsters just can’t poll Democratic primaries anymore? That’s a theory gaining steam after Michigan. The polling certainly is a real mess in Wisconsin, mostly because the race itself is a real mess. The latest available poll, an internal one released by Crowley’s campaign, shows Hong up 19. The Crowley campaign called that good news. They get to call it whatever they want, because it is the only poll of the field as it actually stands available to public eyes. All previous polling had one or both of the two candidates who dropped out — Sara Rodriguez and Mandela Barnes — included. (Oh, also like 265,000 voters cast early ballots already, many before those two dropped.)
Charles Franklin, guru of polling at Marquette University Law School, says it’s important to note that every public poll has found Hong up big. When one pollster made an attempt to adjust its findings to the shifting landscape, she was still in the lead.
“As a pollster, you don’t want to say to people, ‘Everything I’m telling you is complete garbage’ — I don’t believe that. But, ‘What I’m telling you is hopefully informative,’” he said. “But anybody would be foolish to bet the house literally on a poll result.”
OK fine, Wisconsin can’t prove primary polls still work. What about Minnesota? The latest public polling of the pitched battle between centrist Rep. Angie Craig and progressive Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan in the Democratic Senate primary has found either Flanagan up by a lot, or the race to be a dead heat. Go fish!
Open tabs: Contiguous US breaks its record for hottest month ever (AP); Judge Temporarily Blocks Mamdani’s Pied-à-Terre Tax (WSJ); Taylor Swift songs removed from White House, Trump campaign posts (Reuters); A.I.-Driven Chip Crunch Leads to New Rush of Lobbying in Washington (NYT)
From the White House
WaPo’s Air Force One scoop reopens the case of the NATO trip: A blockbuster story from The Washington Post last night details how Donald Trump was snuck out of the presidential aircraft via a catering truck while leaving the NATO summit in Turkey last month. The Post reports Trump was then taken to another Air Force VIP plane (one of the smaller ones traditionally associated with VP travel) and flown out of Turkey while the press was told he was departing with them on the original 747. The change was reportedly prompted by fears of an attempt on Trump’s life by Iran. You’ll recall this was the trip when Trump had to send his new Qatari-donated plane away without him on it, reportedly in response to security concerns. Trump has since said the Qatari plane is being upgraded.
The New York Times confirmed much of the Post’s reporting last night, noting the unscheduled presidential movements suggest the Iranian threat was taken quite seriously by officials.
From the campaign trail
Are data center builders making their Senate pick in Texas? Republican nominee Ken Paxton has called the data center issue “complicated” and mostly avoided the subject. Democratic nominee James Talarico has laid out specific plans for tighter regulations around data center construction. NOTUS’ Taylor Giorno reports that the industry is siding with Paxton — his federal campaign arms have received at least $448,000 from executives and political committees of companies building or operating data centers.
Rep. Chuck Edwards’ ballot replacement: State Rep. Jennifer Balkcom is the new Republican nominee in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District after the incumbent Edwards withdrew from the race, NOTUS’ Oriana González reports. The district’s GOP executive committee selected her from a slate of five candidates. Balkcorn has been in the state General Assembly since 2023, and will face Democratic nominee Jamie Ager in November.
THE BIG ONE
The lame-duck session will be all about Social Security if a bipartisan group of senators intent on reforming the program has its way. NOTUS’ Jeff Stein reports on a plan led by led by retiring Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) and Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) to take advantage of the stretch between the November election and the seating of the new Congress in January to jump on one of American politics’ most dangerous third rails: Social Security reform.
The plan: Pass a bill that tasks an independent, bipartisan board with figuring out how to keep the program solvent for the next 50 years, likely by doing things people don’t love, Jeff writes. The bill would also create special rules to streamline its path to the Senate floor. In theory, the upcoming departure of about a dozen senators this fall means those lawmakers can vote for the bill free of political consequence.
The opposition is vocal and powerful. AARP is rallying its millions of members to oppose it. Americans for Tax Reform’s Grover Norquist is trying to stop it, too, calling it an effort to force Republicans to support tax hikes.
The state of things: The Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on the bill last week, a first step toward real advancement. But, a Senate Democratic aide told Jeff, “I will eat my shoe” if the bill passes.
NOTUS METRO
Sign up for our local newsletter, written by Martin Austermuhle and Zara Norman.
Local news: After a Year in D.C., the National Guard Seems Almost Normal, by Martin and Michael Brice-Saddler
What $800,000 Gets You in D.C., Maryland and Virginia Real Estate (With Solar Panels), by Rebecca Ritzel
NOTUS PERSPECTIVES
Baseball’s trade deadline showed, yet again, how extreme wealth and inequality undermine basic fairness — or at least the perception of fairness — in the sport, writes Matt K. Lewis today at NOTUS Perspectives. Kind of like in the American economy as a whole. No wonder socialism is in vogue.
NEW ON NOTUS
The food industry sighs relief at new “ultra-processed” rules: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. proposed new rules around the so-called “generally recognized as safe” regulatory loophole that were nowhere near as bad as industry feared they might be, NOTUS’ Paige Winfield Cunningham reports. Under the proposed guidelines, food manufacturers would have to submit information about additives, including dyes, preservatives, sweeteners and emulsifiers, to the FDA — but the “ultra-processed foods” RFK Jr. has railed about for years would remain on store shelves.
What’s more, the proposal would require congressional action before getting any real teeth, which gives industry more opportunity to flex its considerable lobbying muscle.
More: An Army Under Secretary Purchased Stock in a Major Defense Contractor, by Dave Levinthal
A Judge Demanded More Info From the U.S. in a Secret Deportation Case, by Jose Pagliery
Rep. Max Miller Stays in the Race. What Will Republicans Do Now? By Adora Brown
NOT US
- ‘We’ve never seen anything like this’: ICE’s detention crackdown swamps the courts, by Kyle Cheney for Politico
- Democrats Are Blaming Each Other Over Minnesota’s Welfare Fraud Scandal, by John McCormick for The Wall Street Journal
- The Senate’s newest odd couple is raising Republican eyebrows — and Democratic alarms, by Allan Smith for NBC News
Thank you for reading! If you liked this edition of the NOTUS Newsletter, please forward it to a friend. If this newsletter was shared with you, please sign up — it’s free! Have a tip? Email us at tips@notus.com. And as always, we’d love to hear your thoughts at newsletters@notus.com.
The newsletter was produced by Thomas Burr and Andrew Burton. Photo by Scott Bauer/AP.
Authors
